Time Flies When You’re Having Fun – Or Not

In the blink of an eye 6 month’s have passed since I’ve returned to South Africa.

So, what have I learned?

I Learned That Winter & I Was Never Meant To Be

I’ve always loved snow, even though I’ve had limited interactions with it. There was that one time in Shiyan when it snowed enough for a proper snow fight, which I had. I also built a pretty ugly snow man.

And in Frankfurt once. I traveled by train to a wooded sort of area outside the city and walked into the woods for 30 minutes. There was a trail and pine trees and everything was covered with about 2cm of snow.

Even in London, in 1998 – it snowed in Leicester Square. I shit you not. Fair enough, it turned to slush before it hit the ground, but hey, it snowed. Snow!

This winter in Cape Town – ok, outside Cape Town near a mountain, mountains are always worse – chilled me right to my bone. And I mean literally, my tibias and fibulas resonates, each at their own frequency, with the aches of winter the likes I do not care for.

So no, this winter thing; it’s not for me.

Computers – If They Require Sitting Down – Is Bad For the Body

Don’t ask me about the details, but I know for a fact that sitting on my ass for most of the day in front of a computer is not good for the body. Let’s just say it affects the pressure in the water pipes.

I’ve read research that suggests that sitting in front of the TV actually burns less calories than sleeping. LESS! And for every 6 hours per day you sit down, you shorten your life. The body was built to move.

In light of that I can only imagine the damage sitting still in front of the computer causes.

Sure, my fingers are moving, thank god, else they would freeze off, but the rest of me? Dead. Stationary. Not moving. Frozen, for all I know, if only I moved to check, but I don’t.

Manual labour is the way to go. Knock your hamster off his running wheel; fire the gardener; pooper-scooper? Yup – hire me! I’ll work for motion.

I can sit still no longer, I am seriously getting to a stage where my body will atrophy if I force it to sit still any longer. Nobody needs atrophied legs, or bum or let’s just stop there before vivid images of atrophied body parts haunt me tonight.

If I must, stand-up computing is the way to go. Stand-up? In that vein…

I Miss Stand-Up Comedy

It’s true, I only tasted it a few times and have minor experience in the art of making people laugh (on stage), but I miss it nevertheless and I do, foolishly or otherwise, believe I could make something of it.

That’s all I have to say about that.

I Friggen Love Craft Beer

Not just drinking craft beer, because holy shit, does South Africa have the lion’s share of craft beer choices. I also love (LOVE) making it.

I’m had a damn good go at drinking as much of it as I could over the last 6 months, but would you believe I’ve hardly made a dent?

A decent effort has been put into documenting all the craft beer breweries / beers / markets and festivals in South Africa over at Craft Bru, but I have loads more to taste yet before I can claim to have tasted even half.

And the brewing. Oh. My. Goodness. Purely the fact that ingredients are so easily available has increased my learning curve to something deliciously steep. The taste of your own craft brew, no matter how bad, is so much sweeter. It’s your own labour, your own sweat that has gone into its creation. It’s like you know how love is the secret ingredient in your mother’s cooking? It’s the same for craft beer.

All the brewing and talking and sharing and learning has been invaluable. Invaluable, I tell you.

How to brew for a living? Stay tuned while I figure out that answer.

You Can’t Please All Of The People All Of The Time

There will always be sacrifices and considerations, but in the end you – and by you I mean I – have to live with the decision and the consequences.

My choices are hard to explain and even harder to understand – sometimes even for myself.

But this I know: there’s more to life than schooling, working, trying to get rich, marrying, retiring and dying. But how much more? And will I find out before I too die?

The Next Step

And thus the next step.

I would like to say I didn’t make my decision lightly, but why? Fuck it, if I did make a decision on a whim, so what? I didn’t, but what if I did? Hu?

Anyway, how does anyone know if any one choice is the right choice? Or a step in the right direction?

Do you pray? Do you get confirmation from your parents, your spouse, your well-meaning-but-ultimate-clouded-by-their-own-interests friends. Do you draw from a morphological analysis or perhaps a crystal ball?

Or do you make an educated guess and just follow your gut?

Whichever way you go you either die or learn a lesson – expensive or otherwise – and live to try again.

Let’s try again.

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About Jaco Swanepoel

1 Earth, 6.5 Billion Adventures. There is adventure in every person on this planet and I want to experience them all. Clearly I'm way behind.
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Hey Jaco, good meeting you at Uncle Tan’s the other day — sorry we didn’t get to swap email details before your group took off… but managed to find you this way in the end! All the best and let’s keep in touch.